The power of language is the inspiration for much of Michelle Hamer’s work. Her current exhibition, I’m a Believer, continues in this vein, exploring the dismissive language used by some health professionals around patients’ chronic health problems.
Drawing from original letters contributed by patients from around the world, along with her own personal experience of living with under-diagnosed health issues, Hamer exposes the ‘delegitimising’ of a patient’s lived knowledge of their (often female) bodies and how the veracity of their symptoms may be questioned or ridiculed by those in positions of power and influence.
Winner of a number of awards and residencies, Hamer has a background in architecture and alongside her art practice teaches Architectural History, Design and Communication at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, RMIT, where she initially studied.
Her present exhibition at Linden New Art, a Victorian mansion with contemporary additions located in Melbourne’s bayside suburb of St Kilda, reflects a departure from the beautifully rendered, architecturally oriented, streetscape tapestries for which she has been known for the past 20 years.
Although the spotlight is still on social issues, the present exhibition enters new territory, exploring issues of chronic pain through the mediums of screen and mono printing. Drawing from 15 redacted letters and MRI/CT scans, Hamer, with the support of printmaker Trent Walter, has produced a series of 21 editioned prints and 70 monoprints on cotton-based paper along with tapestry pieces for her current show.
Spread across two levels of the gallery, the works on display are largely monochromatic, in shades of grey, black and blue, the redacted letters with segments of original text creating a new narrative. Combined with body scans or imagery that sits alongside the redacted pieces, the work is displayed in a grid-like fashion, a bit like the grid for a tapestry piece, its presentation both powerful and repetitive.
Although the imagery is stark, the text can be difficult to read, requiring closer scrutiny from the viewer to absorb both its humour and confronting nature. And although repetition can be a powerful tool in message signalling, in this case, greater diversity in the printed pieces may have added to the visitor experience and engagement.
In the corner of a room on the second floor an interactive space titled Nobody Knows provides an opportunity for the visitor to anonymously record their own chronic pain experiences which will then, at the close of the exhibition, be utilised by Hamer in her ongoing exploration of this important societal issue.
Though the option of lifts and stairs are available to the visitor to navigate the spaces, a more carefully considered installation of the exhibition pieces may have foreseen possible difficulties in presenting works in the entrance area to the gallery, or at the top of the staircase on the second floor and its small adjacent room, where concurrent activities such as artist talks can cause navigation issues or impact the time spent with the works themselves.
Read: Theatre review: The Last Train to Madeline, Meat Market Stables
Exploring an important and confronting societal issue, this timely exhibition taps into current conversations around medical bias, gendered language and undiagnosed chronic health problems (which will be the focus of the recently announced Victorian Government Inquiry into Women’s Pain).
The exhibition is supported by didactic panels, online information and an artist talk on Saturday 3 August.
Michelle Hamer: I’m a Believer is showing at Linden New Art, St Kilda until 25 August 2024.
